Thanks to a new system in place this past week converting Raptr into a news style RSS feed service, data for games has been lost in the shuffle. But, as I said...happiness ensues. The numbers have been a thorn in my foot due to calculations showing oddities not matching the norm. Like when a game has anecdotal evidence, like free play time or trials and then having losses on Sunday, while Saturdays being higher in player counts; Raptr just fell apart.
So, using X-Fire's data, hopefully we can take time to discuss why games are changing in numbers. Better commentary on the state of the current MMO's should help us understand why the game is ranking where it is.
So, lets get to this weeks numbers. Previous rating comparisons are from 5/16/2011.
- Rift - 2835 ( 3325 ↓ )
- EvE Online - 2159 ( 2005 ↑ )
- Aion - 2039 ( 1988 ↑ )
- Lord of the Rings Online - 1623 ( 1800 ↓ )
- Age of Conan - 402 ( 287 ↑ )
- Dungeons & Dragons Online - 288 ( 277 ↑ )
- Star Trek Online - 279 ( 327 ↓ )
- Champions Online - 182 ( 217 ↓ )
- Warhammer Online - 139 ( 133 ↑ )
- Final Fantasy XIV - 119 ( 112 ↑ )
- DC Universe - 32 ( 57 ↓ )
Lets start with our mover shaker award this week.
Age of Conan takes a major jump and lands in the top 5 this week. Thanks to promotions about the movie tie ins, free account restoration for older players and the final piece of free to play coming down the pipe...AoC may just start to look good on the charts and become a winner.
Rift took a small plunge, but as has been happening...week by week Rift fluctuates. The numbers are still tops to make it our number 1 game.
EvE had some major movement in numbers this week. One report though is CCP is fighting a bot infestation, so not sure if the major jump is real. The fact they were at around 1900 last weekend is suspect. Still good to hold number 2.
Aion continues to climb. Patch 2.5 is here with the graphical upgrades, and reactivations were also key here. As a side note, I did get an email from Nvidia offering me a FREE copy of the game AND 15 days (odd, I know). So, not sure how many will try that offer.
Lord of the Rings Online has been showing some losses the last few X-Fire games, so not sure what is happening. Maybe the koolaid is wearing off? A recent update should have shown growth here, so it is confusing. Of course it could be a client issue, and the game runs like crap with X-Fire on...hard to say. I will continue to watch this one, as this has proven to be of interest.
Star Trek Online and Champions Online both fell. Wonder if this has anything to do with the news about Cryptic being flushed by Atari? We will continue to watch this and see if any repercussions are to be felt.
This weeks big loser is DC Universe. How SOE can even recover from the damage of their hacks is beyond me. I for example would never touch another of their products. But, people are odd...especially MMO players, so we will see if DCUO can recover.
*****
It was a holiday weekend, but seems numbers did not move that much. Overall steadiness in most titles, but a few surprises as well.
Lest we forget...the elephant in the room, lets see how Blizzards monkey on everyones back is doing.
Lest we forget...the elephant in the room, lets see how Blizzards monkey on everyones back is doing.
That is a bit of a drop. Again, may be the weekend or is the behemoth finally showing signs? Hard to say. The fact growth was shown after the initial Rift launch, this may just be a holiday fluke.
Overall, our main games hold strong. Rift still rocking the new launch, Aion and Eve both growing and Age of Conan showing that it could still have life.
Can't wait to see how this all plays out over the summer.
Cheers for now.
2 comments:
I wondered about LotRO as well. Us Europeans are merged with the US service this week (servers will go down tomorrow midday and stay offline for us for 2 - 3 days). So, on the one hand, we haven't gotten the update on the EU servers yet and on the other hand, we might be a bit less motivated to keep playing now that we're being moved over... or people let their subs run out and didn't bother with the f2p version until after the merge? It doesn't sound likely, though.
Are you not doing this anymore? First it was weekly, then bi-weekly, now we are approaching 3 weeks. I found your analysis interesting, hope you keep it up.
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